An 82-year-old man has been rescued in the Shannon Estuary after his yacht got into difficulty.
It is understood windy conditions caused the boat to crash into rocks near Kildysart in Co Clare last night.
The man then climbed from his yacht onto a small island for safety.
A member of the public alerted emergency services to the incident around 11.20pm.
However, the Coast Guard's lifeboats could not be sent to the area due to stormy conditions.
A rescue helicopter was sent to the scene and winched the man to safety just after midnight.
He was brought to Limerick University Hospital suffering from hypothermia.
Meanwhile in Dublin this evening, the Coast Guard responded to reports of kayakers in difficulty off Red Rock in Sutton.
The Irish Coast Guard station in Howth and life guards from Dollymount Beach were tasked. The life guards launched their rescue rib while Coast Guard personnel went to the shoreline to investigate.
When rescue teams arrived they were faced with challenging weather conditions with offshore winds and the tide dropping which resulted in the kayakers being pushed further out into Dublin Bay.
The Dollymount Rescue Boat located four kayakers on the rocks, one of the kayakers was taken on board the rescue boat while the other three climbed back up to the cliff path.
A further eight kayakers were then towed back to shore by the life guards.
Upon arrival back to shore the kayakers met with the Coast Guard team. It transpired most of the kayakers were novices and were on board a commercially organised kayaking trip using sit-on kayaks.
While all were wearing life jackets and wet suits the group had very limited safety equipment with them.
The group also had no marine VHF radio or distress flares, they had not observed the small craft warning in place and had not logged their journey with the Coast Guard operations centre.
